Een Stille Dood explores social isolation and the growing amount of people who die without mourners. Every year tens of people in the Netherlands are buried without family, friends, or anyone to bear witness to their passing; their funerals are arranged by the municipality.
The project emerged from my years working in home care, where I entered the private worlds of people living across Amsterdam. Behind closed doors, I encountered forms of loneliness that remained largely invisible to the outside world: lives shaped by the gradual disappearance of social ties. These encounters made me reflect on the human need to be seen and remembered.
Situated between documentary and fiction, Een Stille Dood creates narratives where fact and imagination to coexist. The photographs move between the tangible and the symbolic, between what can be known and what must remain unknowable. Ultimately, Een Stille Dood asks what it means to be remembered, and what it means to disappear.
Birth Currents explores the power of birth and the capacity of the female body to carry, transform, and bring life into the world.
My understanding of birth was shaped from an early age by the home I grew up in. Raised by an obstetric nurse and a hospice worker, I was surrounded by conversations about beginnings and endings. Birth and death became familiar to me not as opposites, but as interconnected forces within the same cycle.
My mother often spoke passionately about the women she accompanied through childbirth. Through her stories, the birthing body became something I encountered long before I began photographing it; a body suspended between vulnerability and strength. Her fascination gradually became my own. Years later, this early imprint led me to follow women in the Netherlands through their experiences of childbirth, both at home and in the hospital.
Through photography and text, I approach these moments with a sense of wonder and closeness. What began as something I knew through my mother’s stories slowly became something I witnessed for myself. Birth Currents is ultimately a personal exploration of inheritance; the passing of a fascination with women, their bodies, and the mystery of birth from one generation to another.
Birth Currents - Hanna Burgers
De Berg Blijft
Oma, my grandmother, grew up on the Indonesian island Java. Her life took a profound turn when she and our family were detained in a Japanese concentration camp from 1942 to 1945. At that time, Oma was 17 years old.
During those challenging years, a mountain just outside the Ambarawa concentration camp became a symbol of hope for my grandmother. Each day, she would gaze at the mountain, finding solace in the certainty that, regardless of the uncertainties around her, this mountain stood steady. The resilience of my grandmother has always captivated me. Despite enduring traumas during her time in the concentration camp in Java, she embraced life with an incredible strength.
Shortly after my grandmother recently passed away, I travelled to Java myself, drawn by the stories she had shared. I stood where she might have stood, and photographed the mountain she once looked to for as a prayer. With each photograph I took, I tried to see it through her eyes; not just as a landscape, but as a source of strength and a reminder that even in the darkest times, something enduring can still stand tall. By combining the photographs of the mountain with archival material of the camp and of my grandmother, I create a dialogue between past and present, visualising how her lived experiences continue to shape my understanding of living with hope.
Oma, my grandmother, grew up on the Indonesian island Java. Her life took a profound turn when she and our family were detained in a Japanese concentration camp from 1942 to 1945. At that time, Oma was 17 years old.
During those challenging years, a mountain just outside the Ambarawa concentration camp became a symbol of hope for my grandmother. Each day, she would gaze at the mountain, finding solace in the certainty that, regardless of the uncertainties around her, this mountain stood steady. The resilience of my grandmother has always captivated me. Despite enduring traumas during her time in the concentration camp in Java, she embraced life with an incredible strength.
Shortly after my grandmother recently passed away, I travelled to Java myself, drawn by the stories she had shared. I stood where she might have stood, and photographed the mountain she once looked to for as a prayer. With each photograph I took, I tried to see it through her eyes; not just as a landscape, but as a source of strength and a reminder that even in the darkest times, something enduring can still stand tall. By combining the photographs of the mountain with archival material of the camp and of my grandmother, I create a dialogue between past and present, visualising how her lived experiences continue to shape my understanding of living with hope.
Commission for International Development Law Organization (IDLO)
During a three-month Artist in Residence program at the intergovernmental organisation IDLO, I explored how the rule of law underpins peace and justice in our society. Immersed in an environment dedicated to legal reform and human rights, I engaged with the organisation's mission and daily work, translating complex legal and developmental concepts into visual form.
The starting point for this project is my grandmother. During the Second World War, she spent three years in a concentration camp. I grew up carrying the knowledge of this part of her life, and with it, a deep awareness of how fragile peace can be. What has stayed with me most, is what came afterwards: she became an advocate for peace. She chose to dedicate herself to something that had once been taken from her. Her story has shaped my own understanding of peace as something that cannot be taken for granted, but must be consciously chosen.
Through this commission, I arrived at a central insight: peace is not a static state, but an active, ongoing process; something that must be continuously practiced and protected. Inspired by this understanding, I developed a visual series that reflects the labour, fragility, and resilience involved in building peace.
www.idlo.int
Hosted by Hanna Burgers, the Balcony Podcast is a space for thoughtful conversations with artists, photographers, and cultural thinkers from the Netherlands and beyond. Born from a deep curiosity about visual culture and its role in shaping society, each episode offers a fresh perspective on how art reflects, challenges, and reimagines the world around us.
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